A public dispute between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla escalated sharply on Sunday, with Musk responding to Khosla’s accusation of promoting a “White America Great Again” (WAGA) ideology with a personal insult and a defense of his family’s background. The exchange, unfolding on Musk’s social media platform X, reignited a feud between the two billionaires that has spanned issues ranging from artificial intelligence to immigration.
The latest volley began after Khosla responded to a Musk post from September 2025, in which Musk observed that white people are a “rapidly diminishing minority of the global population.” Khosla characterized Musk’s statement as promoting a racist ideology, and called on “non-white” employees of Tesla, SpaceX, and X, as well as “decent white” staff, to seek employment at companies backed by Khosla Ventures. He even invited potential recruits to submit their LinkedIn profiles.
“@elonmusk doesn’t want MAGA, he wants WAGA or ‘white America great again’ as a racism is great and desirable” paradigm,” Khosla posted on X on January 27, 2026.
Musk’s response was swift, and pointed. He dismissed Khosla as a “pompous asshole,” referencing a past dispute over public access to a beach near Khosla’s home. He also highlighted his partner’s Indian heritage and the fact that his eldest son is named after Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, a Nobel laureate. “Vinod, you’re not just such a pompous asshole that you tried to stop the public from using a public beach near your house, you’ve also gone full retard,” Musk wrote.
This represents not the first instance of public disagreement between the two tech leaders. Previous clashes have centered on the 2024 election, artificial intelligence, and immigration policy, according to reports. The current dispute follows a pattern of increasingly polarized rhetoric on X, which Musk acquired in 2022.
Vinod Khosla, born in Pune, India, in 1955, immigrated to the United States in 1970 and founded Khosla Ventures, a prominent venture capital firm. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1976 and later earned degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford Graduate School of Business. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has not issued any further statements regarding Khosla’s accusations as of Sunday evening.
